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Need some planning information for Japan trip

We're going to India (from Denver) in December, but we'd like to see some of Japan on the way there. We'd like to fly into Narita, and spend some time in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, before continuing on to Delhi. This is not intended to be a comprehensive tour of Japan; for this trip, we only want to see those cities.

We're thinking of taking trains between those cities. I could use your advice on a couple of questions:

How much time should we allot for each of those cities? We're locked into an arrival time in Delhi, but we're very flexible on time in Japan; we'll just leave Denver earlier if we have to.

We're considering flying into Narita, then after our time in Tokyo, taking the train to Kyoto and Osaka, and flying out of Osaka to Delhi. Does this make sense, or is there a better way to do this?

Honestly, it depends on YOUR interests, and none of us can speak to that! With that qualification, I would say -- based on MY interests -- that bare minimums for these 3 cities are Tokyo 2 days, Osaka 0 days, and Kyoto 3 - 4 days. And I note that I would find those times extremely frustrating, as I would be skipping SO many things that I would want to see! JMO.

I recommend that you consult japan-guide.com and get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, note their opening/closing times, and mark them on a calendar. Then pencil in your transportation, add some time on either side (for getting to/from your lodging, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.). Then see how things fit together.

We will, of course, do our research on these cities. I should emphasize that this is a trip to India, and is not intended to be a "tour" of Japan, just a stopover on the way.

We've never been to Japan (other than passing through Narita enroute to somewhere else), and may eventually plan a more comprehensive visit, but we thought this might be a good opportunity to take a week or so to see these cities.

Interesting that you'd allocate 0 days for Osaka (again, we still have research to do) and only 2 days to Tokyo (we love cities, by the way).

If it were me, I would spend all five days in Kyoto, using one of them for a day trip to Nara, and possibly another to the Miho Museum by IM Pei. Since you want a taste of Japan, how about getting it in its most special city, giving yourself some time to see its temples and gardens, take the Philosopher's walk. We spent 8 nights there before going to Koya-san and Miyajima and another night and day before flying home out of Kansai. It was not too much time.

I agree with Kja that your itinerary in Japan depends on what you like.

My advice is don't spread yourself too thin. For your first time travel in Japan, I would suggest that you spend either one full week in Tokyo (including a day trip to Hakone & Mt Fuji) or one full week exploring Osaka and Kyoto.

Tokyo and Osaka are fast-paced cities while Kyoto is more laid back. Kyoto is the perfect place to soak in local culture in Japan.

If you want to get the best of both worlds, I suggest you to split your trip between Tokyo and Kyoto. And like Kja's preference, I will skip Osaka too. I prefer to see historical places, nature and parks. Kyoto is full of history and nature while Tokyo is abundant in parks.

If you will be visiting both Tokyo and Kyoto, flying to Narita (or Haneda) and flying out of Kansai will make a lot of financial sense since you will only need to pay for one way bullet train ride.

If it seems like I've included too many one night stays, we found Nara and Osaka so easy to travel to from Kyoto that, although it did involve taking luggage with us, it wasn't much of a hardship.

If you are taking a lot more luggage for India, you might want to investigate luggage storage service at your international airport, and take only one shared case around for your Japan visit. Public transport is super easy in Japan but you won't want to be lugging enormous amounts of luggage with you.

The basic plan in your OP does make sense. You can store luggage at Narita airport if you are leaving Japan from there or you can send it on to Osaka Kansai Airport.

From the airport to Tokyo you will take train or bus. Easy way is to stay at a hotel where the bus drops you off. The bus is a bit cramped for me and is subject to traffic, unlike the train, but it is a no-brainer. Having said that, I do recall wondering if the ride from NRT to Yokohama station was ever going to end.

Tokyo to Kyoto you will travel by shinkansen. You don't need a rail pass if you leave Japan from Osaka. If you leave from Narita then a pass might save some money, but not much. In both cases, if you add a destination, like Hiroshima, then the advice would change. But for what you have now: no pass for me.

You can take a train to Osaka Kansai from Kyoto or Osaka. There definitely are limo buses from Osaka hotels to the airport. Am not sure about buses from Kyoto to KIX - I know there are buses but don't know if they serve any hotels.

The plan now (based on the info you've all provided, and assuming I can get flights that fit my schedule) is to fly into Tokyo, spend 4 nights, take the train to Kyoto, spend 4 nights, then fly out of Osaka to Delhi.

Some obvious questions:

How long is the train ride to Kyoto?

How long would it take to get from Kyoto to the Osaka airport (more specifically, would it make sense to leave Kyoto for a morning flight from Osaka, or should I plan on spending the night in Osaka)?

Can you recommend some nice (meaning 3-star or higher) hotels in Tokyo and Kyoto (not ryokans, but western style) located so that the major points of interest are easily accessible? Chain hotels are fine (Sheraton, Hilton, Intercontinental, etc.).

Do we need to get visas in advance, or can they be had on arrival?

Thanks for your help. I'm sure I'll need more before this is finalized, but I'll be moving pretty fast now that I have the itinerary settled.

Bullet train back to Tokyo and flight from Narita to Delhi (I chose Narita rather than Osaka because the flight schedules to Delhi are better).

The Narita/Delhi flight leaves at 11:35 AM. How exactly would I get to Narita after the bullet train arrives in Tokyo, and will the bullet train and airport transportation schedules support my proposed flight schedule?

kja, as you can see, rather than shifting a night from Tokyo to Kyoto, I simply added a night to Kyoto. We actually love large cities (actually, cities of all kinds), and certainly Tokyo is a city worthy of at least as much time as Kyoto, being world-class city, is it not? (OK, personal preference play a lot in this decision).

Tiffy, the link to first-time hotels is full of good information, and we'll surely choose a hotel from that list.
Thank you.

If you like the flights from narita to Dalhi better, why not fly into Osak, then out of Narita? But if it is definitely in & out of Narita, I'd go straight to Kyoto, then do Tokyo second.

I would not try to make it from Kyoto to Narita for an 11:30 am flight! Even by Shinkansen, it is between 2.5 and 3 hours from Kyoto to Tokyo, plus another hour to Narita. Add in transfer times, and the 2 hour advance arrival at the airport, and you will have to leave you hotel in Kyoto at Kyoto at about 4 AM. You will be in a fog by the time you get to Delhi!

I also vote for just visiting 2 cities, with maybe a short day trip or two. I like to be in top form when I get to India.

I'm with Kja, yes Tokyo is a world class city, but I (like many) found more I wanted to see in Kyoto. That said, if someone offered me ten days free in Japan, on proviso of having to spend all of it in Tokyo, of course I'd take it as there is enough in both destinations to fill much more time than that!

As per my first post, with ten days, I'd split 5 to Kyoto, 3 to Tokyo and the others to Miyajima/Hiroshima and either Koyo-san, Nara or Osaka.

Given the fact that Japan is just a pre-trip, I think you have made a good decision not to put in too many cities.

You can, however, consider day trips to Nikko out of Tokyo and Nara out of Kyoto. Flying into Osaka and doing Kyoto first makes the most sense to me as well. Then you take the train to Tokyo and fly out of Narita. Look up luggage storage at airports and also the luggage forwarding services which we are using during our June/July trip. Everyone is right about Japan-guide.com. It has a wealth of fantastic information.

Have a great trip. Let us know how it goes, as well as your trip to India!

I agree with KJA. I would spend more time in Kyoto (actually I would go for just Kyoto, Hiroshima/Miyajima, maybe Koya-san and save Tokyo for next time), less in Tokyo, and definitely go to Kyoto first. It's a gentler city for jet lag and the Kansai airport is both attractive and easy. But that's me. And we loved Nara and the Miho museum as day trips.

m2dm, thanks for the train info to Kyoto. This should get us into the train station by about 7 PM.
Any suggestions for a nice hotel in Kyoto? Looking for something central to the major attractions (if such a place exists), and, of course, easy to get to from the train station.

The Westin get mixed reviews, but we loved being able to walk to the Philosopher's Walk and stop at all the temples on the way (see guides). Kyoto is not as walkable a city as say New York or Rome--more spread out like LA (though IMO MUCH more beautiful), so I liked being walking distance from one set of sights.
Others who post here will know more.

mrwunrfl, thanks for the airport train schedule link, it will be helpful. Also, would it make sense to reserve our bullet train tickets from Kyoto to Tokyo in advance (online)? If so, do you have a link for that?

Tiffy, I attempted to book one of the Tokyo hotels in Shinjuku that was suggested in the link you provided. Apparently, the Blossom hotel (my first choice) was completely booked for my dates. Attempts to book the Sunroute Plaza (my second choice) failed because the Agoda web site could not show me the rates and availability for my dates, and there was no U.S. number for direct contact with the hotel. I phoned the Agoda number provided, and left a voice message describing the problem and requesting that they contact me as soon as possible. I heard nothing from them yesterday (they eventually contacted me this morning), so given that at least one of my choices had already been sold out, I decided to act sooner rather than later. I booked a room at the Hyatt Regency in Shinjuku (not far from the other suggested hotels, with easy access to the trains).

So now I have everything booked for our trip, except for a hotel in Kyoto. Given that the important things to see in Kyoto are apparently spread out, and we won't have a car, I would love some suggestions for a good locale to choose a hotel (walking distance to restaurants and some attractions, safe in the evening, with easy access to transportation to outlying attractions). Also, any suggestions for specific hotels would be helpful.

Rather than being sold out, it's more likely that the hotel you wanted hasn't yet opened its bookings for December. Most Japanese hotels only allow bookings 4 or 6 months in advance. It's the same with domestic flights.

Hang on to the booking you have, but check back for the other one closer to the time if it's the one you'd prefer.

someotherguy,thanks for the info. Some of the online messages from the hotels stated that they were unable to complete the booking because they were fully booked or the hotel was not yet open for booking (I'm paraphrasing here), just as you've suggested. This also happened when I tried to book a hotel in Kyoto (specifically, the Hyatt Regency). In this case, being a Hyatt Gold Passport member, I was able to called and they confirmed that the hotel was actually fully booked (at least, for the rooms I wanted). For hotels that only had local (Japanese) phone numbers listed, I didn't bother to call. A quick check of independent booking sites (booking.com, hotels.com, etc.) confirmed that many hotels were already fully booked.

kja, I looked into hotels in the area you suggested, picked one that looked good to me, and ran into the same roadblock, "fully booked."

I finally bit the "expensive" bullet and booked a room at the Hotel Granvia. The location looks OK (in the main Kyoto station, which has the added convenience of being the terminus of the train from KIX, and also where I board the train to Tokyo). Someday, after I've downed a bottle of sedatives, I'm going to add up the cost of this trip!

LuisJp, thanks for the statistics. We do really love cities, but we we're not planning to visit ALL of Japan's cities in the week and a half that we've allotted to Japan on this trip. This was actually just an afterthought to our India trip (think of it as foreplay).

With the caveat that we tend not to book the American chains (beyond our budget), we loved the location of the Kyoto Royal Hotel & Spa. It's not as posh as the name makes it sound but we were extremely happy with our room, probably the largest, most recently refurbished and comfortable of all our Western hotel choices. That said, I think it depends on what room you get (we booked a standard but were there 6 nights so perhaps were assigned one of the better ones) as I've seen some say their rooms were not up to scratch.

I booked it via booking.com --- on our first trip I booked mostly via agoda.com and japaneseguesthouses.com whereas on the second trip I switched agoda for booking.com which, for the vast majority of properties, doesn't require payment in advance (just a credit card to guarantee the room) and also allows cancellation up till 3 days ahead (again, on most not all, so check before you book). For me, that allowed me to book what I could find and then relax and look for the hotels I really wanted to open up their availability, in which case I could cancel the place holder booking.

The reviews on booking.com are also more useful to me than tripadvisor ones, not least because they can only be left by people who have actually booked that hotel through the booking.com site, so less likelihood of competitor slurs.

First, I should note that all of the hotels I've booked for this trip have full cancellation privileges (up to a few days prior to arrival), and none have been pre-paid (except to hold the room). This gives me the option to cancel, should I find a hotel more to my liking over the next few months.

I don't always book American chain hotels. For example, on my recent 10-week trip to Scandinavia and eastern Europe, about 1/3 of my hotels were not American chains. And on this trip, 2 of my 3 hotels (in Delhi and Kyoto) are not American chains (although they are chains).

I generally like to book chain hotels (not always American) because they are a known quantity (especially in countries with significantly different cultures, such as Japan and India). But if I can ascertain that a hotel meets my preferences, either by their online presence or first-hand references such as I get from this forum, I have no problem with booking such hotels.

But I do have specific likes and dislikes (as everyone does, I imagine).
For example, I'm a particularly fussy eater. If I'm in a country like Japan or China, with a predominantly seafood (or God knows what in China) diet, I want a hotel where I can at least start the day with a western breakfast, and a choice of western food for dinner if I can't find a restaurant I like in the evening. Then I can go the entire day without lunch if I'm out touring. And let's hear it for the Italians! I can almost always find an Italian restaurant to save the day.

Also, I don't like small, dark rooms or cramped, uncomfortable beds, at any price. When I was living in Germany, my French secretary once booked me a room in Paris that she assured me was very nice. Turns out the room was so small that the door couldn't open all the way without hitting the bed. My wife and I had to go into the room one at a time, then close the door and walk around the bed so the next person could get in. It's all a matter of perspective.

And I definitely don't buy into the idea that it doesn't matter what your hotel is like, because you "only sleep there."

To me, a hotel should allow you to decompress and relax after a full day of sometimes high-intensity exposure while touring. Try walking around Bangkok for a day, for example (and I imagine Tokyo would also demand your undivided attention).

So finding a hotel that meets my requirements at a budget price, while not impossible, is certainly not always easy.

When I research a hotel, I look at the reviews on Trip Advisor, and then check reviews and prices on Booking.com.
But I find that web sites like Booking.com don't always have exactly the room that I want, while booking with the hotel directly might provide a greater choice. However, as I found out while driving around Greece and Turkey without pre-reserved hotels, sometimes when a hotel clerk tells you that they are fully booked for that evening, ten minutes spent on Booking.com will turn up a room at that hotel. In Antalya, the desk clerk even suggested that I could find a room in their fully-booked hotel if I go into their business center and reserve the room through Booking.com.

Ah, I just realised my comment on American chains may have appeared pejorative, that was not at ALL my intention.

What I meant by American chains was actually the expensive ones such as Hyatt and Westin and I don't know, Four Seasons and my brain has gone blank but these are usually the high end hotel chains. I don't book them not because I have anything against chains (let alone American chains) but because they are pretty much always waaaaaay above my budget. I'll pay that kind of night rate for a very fancy ryokan with a blowout kaiseki feast included but not for a regular hotel, even if it's glorious!

I do love chains, as you say you can be confident on what you are getting.

In Japan we stayed in a number of Dormy Inn hotels, all of which we thought were great - locations, size of rooms (for Japan), layout of rooms, comfort, and certainly for value.

I agree that a hotel needs to be somewhere you can relax. For us that simply means enough space that we're not tripping over our luggage and comfortable enough furniture that we can lounge around reading / looking up tourist info on our tablet / catching up on email etc.

Oddly, when it comes to travelling in Europe, I rarely book via the booking sites like booking.com as they tend not to feature the smaller pension-style bed and breakfast hotels that I favour. And for France we'll often use local table d'hote guidebook to find hosts offering one or more room in their home, usually with breakfast included. We've rarely been disappointed but then again it's usually a one night stay and not at all expensive. My style of travel/ style of accommodation is very different for Japan/ longhaul trips and European self-drive or city break trips.

I agree totally that a hotel is more than just a bed, and whilst it will only rarely break a trip, the right one can certainly help make a trip so so much better!

I didn't at all take your reply as being pejorative, and I apologize if I gave that impression.

In a country like Japan, I would have no problem with smaller hotels, in fact I tried to book a couple that were in the link provided by Tiffy. But given that November is apparently high season in both Tokyo and Kyoto, in the face of rapidly disappearing options, I thought it best to get an immediate reservation.

In India, on the other hand, based upon what my son told us (he has traveled there), I would get nothing less than high-end accommodations.